


The Thrill of the Rush

by littledust



Category: Serial Killer - Lana Del Rey (Song)
Genre: Choking, Crueltide, F/F, F/M, Hollywood, Serial Killers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-05-05 05:03:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5362403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littledust/pseuds/littledust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After filming the commercials, Cherry dyes her hair blonde. She misses her signature red hair, but blonde maintains the glamor without sacrificing the camouflage. There are thousands of pretty blonde actresses in Los Angeles, all of them with faces that seem familiar. She practices making up her face on her own, pretty without the polish of an expert. She stocks the closet of her second apartment with secondhand furniture and clubbing outfits cheap enough to give her the scent of desperation.</p>
<p>Then, Cherry goes out hunting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Thrill of the Rush

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tristesses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tristesses/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, dear recipient! I, too, am a fan of Lana Del Rey's languid murder songs. Thank you for such awesome prompts to work with!

**i. wish I may, wish I might**

The lights dim and Cherry steps out from underneath, the director's voice a distant murmur in her ears. She smiles as her wardrobe person adjusts the bow on her dress but doesn't make conversation. She has a reputation for being aloof, and why not? Her mother was _the_ Carmen, no last name necessary in show business, and then she went and named her daughter Cherry.

The fifteen-minute coffee break turns into the end of shooting for the day after someone on set pulls the director into an urgent whispered conversation about unions and policies and child actors. The last phrase, with a glance over to the refreshment table.

Cherry swirls the cheap coffee in her mouth and spits it discreetly back into the cup. Smiles. _Who, me?_ Makeup gave her blood red lipstick for all of thirty seconds today before they decided it just didn't fit the character. Annabelle Elise is supposed to be America's sweetheart, pink and pure.

Her manager has enough sense to see Cherry's bad mood and doesn't press her to answer phone calls and fan letters, though it's been ages since Cherry has done either. Filming _The Belle Elise_ tires her like no other role, though she's been acting since she was six. It's one thing to be a cute kid on a sitcom, another thing to actually _act_ , create a character and then put her heart and soul onto the screen.

Cherry's a good actress, but she plays Cherry Parker: Sixteen-Year-Old Actress full-time. Layering someone else on top of that renders her incapable of doing much more than curling up in her hotel bed, pulling the petals off whatever flowers were delivered that day. Her mother would get upset when she used to pull the wings off insects as a girl. _They can't feel it,_ Cherry would protest, and her mother would give her a rose to pluck instead.

_They can't feel it, and they're already dead,_ her mother would say. Her mother, who died later in a hospital bed, all her bright hair fallen off like petals.

The soft petals tear too easily under her fingers. Cherry would rather dig her hands into something thicker. She has strong hands after all the tennis, which she played for her father's sake, and the rock-climbing, which she did for her own sake.

Her agent leaves Cherry her schedule for tomorrow and promises her a wake-up call, then finally clears out. Cherry opens the little booze fridge in the hotel and takes out a vodka. It's almost empty, and the staff won't restock it since she's a minor.

Someone knocks on her door, the old shave and a haircut pattern. Cherry summons a smile and answers the door for the lighting technician with the killer arms. He doesn't have a problem with supplying underage girls, and he doesn't have a problem with kissing them, either.

When the drinking ends, they fuck on the petal-strewn bed, like a cinematic love scene parody. Cherry digs her nails into his back until she leaves ragged semicircles in his skin. Still, she wants to dig deeper.

*

**ii. walking down the avenue**

"It's like everything that's supposed to be there is absent," Cherry says. She makes a graceful loop with one hand to emphasize her point: _zero, empty, gone._ "My mother, my friends, my career. When I was little, my dad used to take me to church, but that's gone, too."

Dr. Roberts makes a note on his crisp yellow legal pad, which is almost the exact same colors and pattern as his tie. He's a handsome man: dark hair barely shot through with gray, clean-cut, startlingly clear blue eyes. He has no idea how to dress himself, though, giving Cherry one more reason for a strong urge to tear off his clothes.

Time to go for broke. Cherry gives an elaborate shrug that sends her oversize sweater slipping down her shoulder. "There's a void in my life. I guess I was looking for something--or someone--to fill it."

"Hence the drinking and the drugs." Dr. Roberts makes another note. His face remains the same mask of professional interest, but the tips of his ears are as red as Cherry's lipstick.

_Bingo,_ Cherry thinks, and spends the rest of her session reeling the good doctor the rest of the way in. She shopped around after she was far enough out of rehab to think clearly. Women therapists were out of the question, she told her manager. Then she went down the list until she found a man who looked at her the wrong way before he caught himself, and she said, _That's the one that I want._

What Cherry wants is the unbridled naughtiness of sex in the doctor's office, complete with Dr. Roberts' hideous tie stuffed into his mouth, but she has to settle for meeting him at his apartment after hours. He's nervous; he goes through the song and dance of fixing her a little platter of cheese and grapes, awkwardly lacking the wine she can't have even though she just turned twenty-one.

The roleplay charms Cherry in spite of herself. She likes how hard he tries to suppress his baser urges. She likes that she has to make the first move, reaching out to toy with the collar of his shirt on the pretext that a grape stem fell there. He's careful when he fucks her, as though she might shatter with too much heat. She surprises them both when she comes, gasping, "Jeremy! I love you!"

Underneath her, his eyes shine, an animal caught in the beam of a flashlight. Cherry smiles and curls up at his side. She can make herself smaller when she wants to, just to twist the knife deeper.

She could tell him that the emptiness goes all the way back to the beginning, from her birth rather than her mother's death. There's no real way to make him understand that they're kindred spirits. That her love comes from understanding, one predator recognizing another, no matter how deep either of them try to bury it.

*

**iii. so I murder love in the night**

By the time Cherry marries Jeremy, her career is dead enough that the news barely makes headlines. She grants a single tabloid newspaper an interview about her new love, then laughs about the resulting "child star marries her doctor" article. Jeremy is mortified. Their subsequent fight is the most interesting event in their marriage, in retrospect.

Cherry enjoys playing the role of wife at first. She sinks into picking out curtains and china patterns. She snags a vintage apron off the set of _Mad Men_ and hangs it in the kitchen, where she never cooks anything more complicated than canned soup. Jeremy's practice suffers a little bit after the news of their marriage gets out, but he's back to his usual working hours within a year. He probably wants to sleep with some of his other patients, but as long as he comes home to Cherry, she doesn't care.

In her own way, Cherry loves Jeremy. Everything about him feels familiar by the second year of marriage: his scent, the feel of his skin, the way he reacts to her saying a certain phrase or holding her head a certain way. She makes a game out of studying his patterns. Sometimes she can provoke his anger or unhappiness and reset him with a well-placed compliment and a blowjob. Other times, she pushes too far and he sulks in his office for a day or two before he speaks to her again.

When she's figured out every button to press, though, other fantasies crowd up against the careful filter Cherry set up in her mind, the one that helps her tear into flowers rather than flesh. Jeremy has a fit of domesticity one night and decides to teach her how to maintain her kitchen. He sharpens the chef's knife, then tests it against the edge of his thumb. He presses a little too hard, and Cherry stares at the blood welling before she remembers to show concern.

She's fantasized about the perfect murder before. Who hasn't, after hearing the story about the killer who used an icicle as a murder weapon? It melts; the evidence is destroyed. Cherry thinks that the perfect murder would look like a suicide, no matter the actual weapon. Pills in the system, or a rope around the neck, either explained away by a note in the victim's own hand. Jeremy doesn't feel guilty about sleeping with young female patients, but he feels guilty about his _lack_ of guilt. He doesn't want to see the monster in the mirror.

Cherry starts smiling at herself in the mirror more. She meets her own gaze every morning. "Will today be the day?" she asks. Her reflection always shakes its head, until the day that it nods.

She's had the suicide note ready to go for weeks. Jeremy leaves his yellow legal pads everywhere, no regard for his patients' privacy. It's easy to copy his handwriting. Cherry crushes his sleeping pills and blends them into his morning smoothie. When he's unconscious, she stuffs the yellow tie into his mouth and ties it on with another. If his body tries to save itself through vomiting, he'll choke.

Cherry can't stay to watch. She has a nail appointment as her alibi. As the woman paints her nails, she alternates between ecstasy (she finally did it) and agony (she can't be there to see). Next time, she catches herself thinking, she'll plan better.

When Cherry gets home, she lingers over Jeremy's body, feeling all of the places that should have a pulse. Then she calls the police and puts on a show.

*

**iv. baby, I'm a sociopath**

There's a media circus after Jeremy. Murder is glamorous. Cherry plays the part of the grieving widow. She asks her stylist to pick up his cues from Jackie Kennedy without making it obvious. It's not his place to judge, so her wardrobe grows in black and white, perfectly tailored to her body.

The police aren't suspicious yet. It's only her first kill, and besides, they all spent nine years watching her character's adorable antics on television. Cherry looks like a young woman who married a sleazy doctor.

She won't be able to bank on that characterization forever, but Cherry always knew that one murder would never be enough.

Cherry moves into a glamorous apartment on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Her manager gets her a nondescript apartment in the city proper, one without a doorman or security cameras. The lease isn't under her name or anyone in her direct employ. Her manager doesn't even question the request. She's had odder, and besides, Cherry agrees to do some commercials in return. The press will have a field day with a washed up child star trying to sell gum and insurance, but it's a means to an end.

After filming the commercials, Cherry dyes her hair blonde. She misses her signature red hair, but blonde maintains the glamor without sacrificing the camouflage. There are thousands of pretty blonde actresses in Los Angeles, all of them with faces that seem familiar. She practices making up her face on her own, pretty without the polish of an expert. She stocks the closet of her second apartment with secondhand furniture and clubbing outfits cheap enough to give her the scent of desperation.

Then, Cherry goes out hunting.

She follows a schedule for which clubs she visits, random enough that the police probably won't be able to decipher any sort of pattern. All gussied up in her role as a starlet wannabe, Cherry flirts with men. They don't think anything of her questions about how long they've been in town, or if they have anyone expecting them at home. Most of them lie. Cherry never calls them on it, even fucks a few of the married ones in her secondary apartment. Might as well get her neighbors used to seeing different men coming in and out.

Finally, she snags a tourist. He's on a solo trip across the United States, going from the West Coast all the way out east. He's not expected home for a month, and he wants to spend most of his travels "off the grid." Cherry sucks on the straw of her drink and nods along with his plans. She wonders why he's drinking in Los Angeles if he wants to be out of reach so badly, but it would be silly to call him on that small hypocrisy.

He has a nice smile. It reminds her of Jeremy, especially once he's dead, a secondary smile slashed into his throat.

The blood really is incredible. Cherry pulls out the plug in the bathtub so she can watch it trickle down his chest, unsullied by water. It's a lot of work, killing this way, and it's practically a guarantee that she won't keep her anonymity forever. It's hard to care with this man's skin so cool and pale under her fingers. Cherry slips on a pair of disposable gloves with regret; she would prefer to wash him bare-handed.

Disposing of the body goes better than expected. Studying crime television pays off.

*

**v. you can see me drinking cherry cola**

Her anonymity is still amazingly, astonishingly intact when Cherry meets Lucky. It's a hard night in Los Angeles. Cherry is on her third bar of the night and every man who's been interested either has a significant other or is lying about not having one. None of them are good-lucking enough to use as a one-night stand. After dismissing the last suitor, Cherry sips at her whiskey sour, glaring at nothing in particular.

Someone to the left of her is laughing too loud. Cherry turns to see the source and blinks. It seems impossible that such a tiny woman can have such a deep, jolly laugh. Everything about her seems too big for her body: the dark curls piled up on top of her head, the sequined black dress clinging to her body, the thick scrawl of makeup across her face. Underneath the swooping eyeliner, the woman's dark eyes are empty in a way Cherry recognizes.

This woman is on the hunt, too.

Cherry waves off other interested men as she finishes her drink. She keeps her glances covert, but when she sets her empty glass down, the woman is next to her. Even standing, she's barely at Cherry's eye level.

"I love your work," Cherry tells her, sincere. She sucks at the maraschino cherry in her drink.

The woman smirks. "I think I've heard of yours as well. I'm Lucky." The way she pronounces the word makes the capital L obvious, sultry instead of silly. Cherry could do with a lesson from her; sometimes she cringes when she says her first name.

"I'm not very lucky tonight," Cherry says. "Got any tips?"

"Avoid places I'm working," Lucky says. Cherry's heart sinks, though she doesn't know what she was hoping for. A secret club of female serial killers? Life isn't a movie, after all.

Then Lucky lifts one polished finger, summoning the bartender. "Two of whatever she's drinking," she says. Her voice is expertly pitched, a seductive murmur that still carries over the noise of the bar.

The voice no longer matches the face, but Cherry recognizes Lucky at last. No one knows what became of Laura London, pop star, after the disfiguring car accident. She won't ask Lucky to confirm, or let the recognition show.

She's rewarded for her discretion with a smile from Lucky. "I'll give you one of my phone numbers," Lucky says after their drinks arrive. "We should get together during daylight hours."

That means she probably doesn't want to kill her. Cherry nods, the blood rushing to her extremities until they tingle. This is almost as good as murder. There's that same edge of danger, and this time she has to wonder who will be the first to die.

*

**vi. we can paint the town in blue**

It's hard to tell how old Lucky is under the plastic surgery. Cherry doesn't look up Laura London's biography, lets her keep the mystery. Lucky prefers her martinis dirty, her fingernails cut short, and killing with her bare hands. "You should really try it," Lucky says, meaning the last one. She flexes her small hands. "If I can do it, so can you."

The booze has gone to Cherry's head. It's been a long time since she's let herself get drunk, and she laughs as she slips against the couch cushions. Jeremy and his yellow legal pads would probably have something to say about her return to drinking paired with her new addiction to murder. He probably could have seen it coming, if only he ever knew her at all.

Cherry raises her own hands and stares at them in fascination. She has long red acrylic nails on, which she'll have to take off before her next hunt. "What if he wakes up and gets away?"

"Say that you're into kinky sex." Out of the corner of her eye, Cherry sees Lucky light a cigarette. She blows smoke out the open window, though Cherry doubts she had to put down a security deposit for this apartment. Another decoy place, maybe not even her normal lair.

An idea unfolds in Cherry's mind, a flower twisting up out of the ground and spreading its petals obscenely wide. "You could show me," she says, rolling her hips in a deliberate full-body stretch. She sits up, careless of her T-shirt rolling up. (She agonized for hours choosing her outfit, went with simple and nondescript in the end. She's willing to bet Lucky never gets visits from female friends in this apartment.)

Lucky lifts an eyebrow at Cherry's ploy but doesn't comment. She purses her lips, clearly pleased in spite of herself. "We'll use this place. You'll wear what I tell you to."

It's like being back on set as a child, watching the grownup actresses get into character. Cherry shivers in delight as Lucky lays out their costumes. It's a play on the angel and devil on the shoulder: a white dress for blonde Cherry, a red dress for dark Lucky. Lucky nods her approval as Cherry does her makeup to match, shades of pastel with a touch of gold around her eyelids for the halo.

They take a cab to a bar a long ways away, passing a flask back and forth. By the time they spill out onto the sidewalk, Cherry is buzzed and giggling. They're an easy target for several interested parties; the trick becomes attracting a party of just _one_. "Next time, we'll make it a double," Lucky murmurs in her ear after they have to spurn a pair of vacationing twins.

Cherry finds the man they take home. He sits at the bar alone and watches the women as he sips his drink, but he doesn't approach. He's a little young for the crowd here, a little less well-dressed, and Cherry would bet money that he's feeling insecure. She walks right up next to him and orders a drink, then strikes up a conversation. _Oh, and that's my friend over there. Would you like to join us?_

The man--boy, really--folds easily. He follows them home, brown eyes wide at his fortune. Lucky kisses him and tells him he's not allowed to touch Cherry until she says, and would he hold his hands up, please? She ties him to the bedpost and wraps her small hands around his throat, squeezing and squeezing until there's no air left in his lungs.

Cherry feels like she can't breathe, either. She's never seen anything more beautiful.

*

**vii. like a light I'm luring you in**

Hunting on her own isn't as fun after that. Cherry goes back to her secondary apartment alone one night, lipstick smudged from a kiss she ended by getting into a cab. She hasn't heard from Lucky in days. It would be foolish to kill so soon after--the disappearing college student made minor news, though no one mentioned foul play.

"Hello, Cherry."

Cherry raises her hand to her mouth to cover her smile. Lucky is sitting on her couch sipping out of a tumbler, a bottle of gin on the coffee table. There were no lights on before Cherry flipped the switch, so Lucky has been sitting in the dark for who knows how long, just for dramatic effect. _Which one of us is the actress, again?_ she wants to ask, but bites her tongue. Lucky might take it the wrong way.

Lucky's gaze flicks over Cherry's mussed hair and rumpled clothes. "I see you've been just as bored. Bit more careless, though. It was too easy to find this place."

"Maybe I'm waiting to be discovered." Cherry bats her eyelashes and tilts her head to the side, the picture of innocence. "If I wanted to be famous again, getting arrested for serial murder would do the trick."

Lucky's eyes narrow, but she says nothing. Cherry takes a seat on the couch and kicks her aching feet out of her platform sandals. She wants some of Lucky's gin very much, but keeps getting distracted by the gin in Lucky's glass, sliding from her glass between her lips.

The drinking isn't good. It's probably why Lucky was able to trace her. Lucky being here is worse, drunk on gin and glaring at her over the rim of her glass. She might make her move at any moment, and Cherry has blurry vision from cheap vodka and blisters from cheap shoes. She wants to open her mouth wide and swallow this moment, the sharp tension between death and desire.

It's what Lucky would taste like, Cherry thinks. She crawls forward on the couch and presses her mouth against Lucky's to make sure.

It's good gin that Lucky's drinking, cucumber and sweet. Swirled in with that is smoke from the cigarettes Lucky smokes every day. Cherry catches Lucky's lower lip and bites down softly, exploring. Her lipstick has no flavor, but it's probably smeared on Cherry's teeth now, red as blood. The thought makes her laugh into Lucky's mouth, and then Lucky reacts at last.

Cherry gasps as Lucky grabs her by the hair and pulls her back a few inches. "I can see you're not taking this seriously," Lucky says. Her face is angry but her voice is low and dark. Cherry shivers and Lucky tightens her fingers in her hair. Little pinpricks of pain burst over Cherry's skull, like neurons firing outside of her brain. "People like us don't have friends."

"But we like to be looked at," Cherry murmurs. "I don't mind you looking, or you following me home. The question is, do you want to look at me?"

Lucky shoves Cherry against the couch cushions. Cherry takes a moment to appreciate the sheer strength in her small frame as Lucky straddles her, then clamps her hands around Cherry's wrists. "I've been looking," Lucky says, just as soft, her face inches away from Cherry's. "We hunt well together. You have a face I'd like to see turn blue someday."

On instinct Cherry tilts her head up, exposing the skin of her throat. "You can see that without killing me."

Lucky lets go of one of her wrists to stroke Cherry's cheek. Her touch is soft, almost maternal. "No, I don't think I could."

They fuck on the couch, scratching and biting at each other like cats. Cherry wants to taste all of Lucky, leave her fingerprints over every inch of skin. She lets Lucky bruise her and bite her where other people won't see. For a little while, this will be enough for both of them.

*

**ix. send me right to heaven**

They hunt together, fuck together, for a year before they make a mistake.

Cherry begs Lucky to go out dancing rather than stay in yet another apartment Lucky doesn't really live in. She makes her eyes wide, promises that she won't lure anyone in, but it can't hurt to _look_. Lucky goes over to the closet and starts pulling dresses off hangers, which is how Cherry knows she won.

Lucky has to know that Cherry is lying. Cherry drinks all the time now to dull the boredom, the empty yawn of days without danger. There aren't enough hunts to keep her entertained, enough nights when she falls asleep with her head pillowed on Lucky's thighs. Before, she used to worry about being caught: caught thinking her unnatural thoughts, caught killing, caught with her fingers in the sugar dish.

What about a kill with no preparation, no tools at the ready, nothing but their own wits?

There's a man at the club practically beginning for death. He's young, handsome, and he comes over as soon as Cherry so much as glances his way. He shouts an introduction, but doesn't try to hold a conversation over the throbbing music. He presses his body against Cherry's and she can almost feel his blood rushing through his veins, underneath his T-shirt and tight jeans. The body is the kind she likes, broad-shouldered but not overly muscular, and his face has the sensitive mouth that Lucky prefers.

"Here alone?" Lucky asks. She smiles, all of her teeth showing.

"Not anymore!" he shouts back.

They take him home.

"Oh, you'll like it," Cherry says as Lucky ties him to the bedposts. She loves watching Lucky work, her hands steady, her knots efficient. The man's eyes are on her, even though all she's doing is standing naked in front of the bed. He grins when he sees her looking at him, and the hard length of his cock twitches against his abdomen.

"I'm sure I will," he says. They usually say that, at the end.

Cherry sinks down onto his cock before she leans forward and wraps her hands around his throat. The dual sensation is outrageously luxurious, enough to make her forget herself a moment, eyes falling shut and rolling her hips. Beside them on the bed, Lucky makes a small sound. Cherry forces her eyes open.

Lucky is sitting to their left. She's leaning against the headboard, right into the curve of the man's arm. Her face is flushed, her hand working between her legs. "Keep going," she commands Cherry. The man has the sense not to speak, and she hasn't even started choking him yet.

Cherry loves him a little, for that. She loves him even better after she tightens her hands and watches the life leave his face. He doesn't seem to realize that death is the end of this game, remains sweetly innocent up until the end. His cock is still hard, so Cherry rocks back and forth, makes herself come on top of a dead man, her lover gasping and shuddering next to her.

When they dispose of the body, they're still riding high, laughing and careless. They don't hide it well enough, and it turns up a few days later. The man was alone because he was married with a newborn, and his pretty wife weeps on every television set.

Cherry's glee must show on her face as she watches the latest broadcast. Lucky doesn't speak to her for days.

*

**x. love you just a little too much**

Cherry buys Lucky flowers, then thinks better of sending them. She stays home, shredding the petals one by one as she watches the news. There are messages on her phone from her agent, who wants to know if she wants to do more commercials, if the money is running out. One of her commercials airs right after a segment on the Hollywood Strangler and Cherry laughs at the synchrony.

She's stumbling drunk when she makes her way to the nearest bar. Cherry waves her ID at every person standing outside the front door and gets turned away by the actual bouncer. Cherry mumbles an apology and leans against the building to regain her balance. The bass shakes the windows; the bouncer looks like he would be a fun kill. She couldn't do it alone, though, unless she drugged him.

The cab driver is happy to take her money, at least. Cherry changes her mind halfway through giving another club address and gives him one of Lucky's instead: the one they shouldn't go back to, because it's near the dumpster where they found the body. She pretends to get a key out of her purse while the cab drives off, then rests her cheek against the building's outer wall. It's cool and still. Cherry closes her eyes.

When she opens her eyes, Lucky is standing there watching her. _The question is, do you want to look at me?_ Cherry offers her a half-hearted smile. Her face is numb, doesn't want to cooperate. "'Lo," she slurs. At least her voice is willing to act, play her as drunker than she really is.

One of them is going to die tonight. Cherry hasn't made up her mind which one she wants it to be.

"Would you like to come in?" Lucky asks. Her voice is smooth, controlled. Only her hands, fisted tight, give her tension away.

Cherry mulls it over, portraying a woman too drunk to translate thought into words. A few hours ago, she really was that drunk. "Yeah," she says at last, and pushes herself away from the wall. She bumps into Lucky, who steadies her with an arm around her waist. Warmth washes over Cherry. It's easy to love Lucky, for all her temper and stubbornness. People like them can't be friends, and they shouldn't be able to love.

In the elevator, Lucky presses a kiss against Cherry's temple. Her hands are looser now, her defenses lowered by Cherry's apparent helplessness. She's so small. The human body is startlingly easy to break with enough practice. Cherry's hands itch for Lucky's throat, and it's her turn to knot them into fists.

"You tried to go hunting," Lucky says as soon as they're inside the apartment and on the couch. She cups Cherry's chin in both of her delicate hands, forcing Cherry to look her in the eye. "It's been _four days_. There's still a police presence at the dumpster. You're going to get us caught." Her voice shatters on _caught_ , the vowels plummeting to the floor, the last consonant a glittering shard.

Because Cherry is a predator, she follows the fault line. The crack running through Lucky mirrors her own; they love each other, and they're going to destroy each other. Are destroying each other.

Cherry smiles and tilts her head back, baring her throat.

Lucky makes a choked, helpless sound, but her hands wrap around Cherry's throat. _Neither of us can help how we're made,_ Cherry would tell her if she had the breath. As spots dance before her eyes, obscuring Lucky's pain-twisted face, she allows herself a pang of regret. Lucky's death would be so beautiful to witness. Lucky won't last long after this, no; killing Cherry will kill her.

Cherry shuts her eyes and lets the lights dim.


End file.
